Anastasiya А. Kosmodemyanova

The relevance of the research is due to the systemic gap between the outcomes of traditional construction personnel training and the rapidly increasing demands of the industry. Graduates often lack comprehensive integrated professional competency that synthesizes fundamental knowledge, practical skills in using modern software, and managerial and corporate competences. We see overcoming this contradiction in the strategic integration of academic and corporate university resources aimed at creating a holistic educational environment. However, the mere declaration of partnership is insufficient. Specific organizational and pedagogical mechanisms and tools are needed to ensure not episodic but systematic, manageable, and measurable interaction among all participants. Specialized project-based learning platforms are such tools, capable of becoming the digital backbone of integration. The aim is to identify and evaluate the integration potential of a digital project-based learning platform that facilitates interaction between academic and corporate components for the training of civil engineers (using the UrFU “Project Team Interaction” platform as a case study). The leading research method is an in-depth case study, implemented through a set of empirical methods including the analysis of students’ digital activity traces, a survey of three user groups (students, academic supervisors, corporate mentors), interviews, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, and statistical processing of the results. The study identified the architecture and defined the functional modules of the platform, covering the full cycle of student project management. Its application led to a significant improvement of students’ professional competences and reduced the subjective variance of final grades by making the process objective through digital activity traces. Corporate partners highly appreciated the transparency of the process and the possibility of prompt intervention, while the structured digital project portfolio increased graduates’ competitiveness in the labor market. The theoretical significance of the work lies in developing the concept of digitalization as a backbone element of integration processes in engineering education. The practical significance lies in presenting a proven model and tools that can be adapted by other technical universities to build effective industry-specific educational systems.